Searchers are still looking for the missing captain of HMS Bounty, the ill-fated tall ship which sank Monday off the coast of eastern U.S. in hurricane Sandy.

"This is still an active search, not a recovery effort," Capt. Doug Cameron, the chief of incident response for the Coast Guard 5th District, said in a news release issued late this morning.

Capt. Robin Walbridge, 63, went missing when he and 15 other people aboard the Bounty abandoned ship early Monday morning.

"Factors such as fitness of the member, weather conditions, survival equipment and the results from previous searches are taken into consideration to determine how long the Coast Guard will search."

The water temperature in the 1,500 nautical mile search area remained steady at 25 C since Tuesday, while air temperatures dropped slightly to 17 C by Wednesday, giving the coast guard some hope that Walbridge could still be alive.

The search area has grown by 150 square nautical miles, as seas in the area diminished to 3.6 metres high and winds decreased to 48 kilometres an hour, the coast guard said.

The U.S. Coast Guard hoisted 14 crew members of the Bounty to safety on Monday, but Walbridge and Claudene Christian, 42, were lost in the water.

Christian was found Monday evening and died later in hospital, while the search for Walbridge continued.

"There has not been any sign of him but the coast guard continues to conduct an active search-and-rescue case, hoping that we can find him alive," Petty Officer Brandyn Hill, a coast guard spokesman, said in an interview this morning.

The coast guard cutter Elm, which has been searched the area since Monday, was en route to its home port this morning, Hill said. But the cutter Gallatin, which arrived Tuesday afternoon, was still searching.

A Hercules aircraft crew completed its air searches Tuesday night and was followed by an Ocean Sentry, which finished its four-hour search early this morning.

Another Hercules crew arrived from Florida today at 7:30 a.m. (EST), and once its shift is over, it will be replaced by another Hercules from Elizabeth City, N.C., the coast guard said.